This invention relates to an infant transport device and more particularly to a low cost, safe, and sure device by which a newborn infant may be handed from the hands of the delivering doctor or other person to the hands of a nurse for transport to a nearby warming table for warming, stimulating, and drying the infant, and providing increased assurance that the infant will be cradled and safely transported.
The post-natal care apparatus and facilities have undergone rapid and remarkable improvement for the health and safety of both the mother and the newborn child. However, there is one aspect of the birthing process, as normally practiced in birthing rooms and in operating rooms which is open to some risk of mishandling and an opportunity for serious injury to the infant, and that could occur during the infant's first post-natal trip in which the infant is placed in the waiting towel or blanket held by an assistant and is carried to a warming table. Usually, if not always, in a hospital environment, the infant is handed to an assistant who is carrying a blanket or towel and who holds the infant and the blanket or towel together, turns, and carries the infant to the warming table area for drying and stimulating. This action, on the part of the assistant, must be accomplished with great care, as such person uses gloved hands to grip the newborn and the towel together, so that this task may be safely accomplished. Thus, if a corner of the towel or blanket is dropped or becomes unfolded, the infant may be placed in jeopardy or subjected to a risk of mishandling or even falling. That such accidents are extremely rare testifies to the skill and care of attendants, and not to any adequate transport device specifically designed, constructed, and intended for this purpose.
The presentation of the newborn child from the mother to an attendant is essentially the same whether the child is born naturally or whether the child is taken by c-section. The latter is normally accomplished within a sterile field and therefore any object which is brought into the room and used for this purpose usually should also be sterile lest the field of sterilization be broken.
Conventional blankets, towels, or other swaddling clothes are not adapted for support of the infant, as such, unless they are formed and gripped properly by the attendant. There is accordingly a need for an infant transport device which assures a higher degree of safety which is uncomplicated and easy to use, which permits an attendant freely to use his or her hands also in supporting the infant, which is absorbent, and which upon arrival at the warming table, may be used immediately for drying and stimulating the infant according to conventional practices.